


Monopolisitic Desire

by SailorPlanetMars



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2018-11-28 13:54:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11419380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorPlanetMars/pseuds/SailorPlanetMars
Summary: Makoto starts a successful business while Haru fizzles out. A weekend away to recharge the batteries is just what the doctor ordered~ But is everything as it seems?Please forgive this trash I am out of practice and getting into the swing of things again I will improve one day I swear





	1. It's a Date!

_Specialising in teaching those in disadvantaged circumstances, our online academy provides support in the basics, enabling a student to take charge of their own learning. Built to act as a support to regular school teaching, but without the strictness of a cram school, Tachibana Academy could be the answer you’re looking for. I hope to see you soon!_

Haru sighed and turned off the television. Something about hearing Makoto promote his business to people neither of them knew put his teeth on edge. Besides, as if it needed promotion. The thing was a ridiculous success for a young university student. One day, after coming home from a practical placement, Makoto felt that something was “missing”. That kids were either totally disengaged or put right under the pump and stretched to breaking point. And so he went around buttering up IT students who knew their way around the technical solutions (which also put Haru’s teeth on edge, although he’d never admit it), and suddenly Tachibana Academy was born. Makoto was reluctant to put his name and face on the brand, but his partner insisted. _You’re better looking_ , she said. _We’ll get more customers_ , she said. Well, she wasn’t wrong, that much was for sure. Makoto had already absorbed Haru’s portion of the rent, just because it wasn’t going to dent his income at all.

There may have been a few more reasons than that, in all truth. Haru’s life wasn’t going nearly as well. He’d never before noticed, but it takes a lot of work to get even a small improvement in your time. And in all honesty, Haru wasn’t perfectly sure he was capable of that amount of work on a permanent basis. So he’d quit his part-time job in a kitchen to try and refocus his energy, and it helped a little, but just not enough. It’s not that he was doing badly, per se. But just that he wasn’t moving onward, and thus was liable to overtaken before too long. Maybe he was just getting old? He sighed again as these thoughts turned over in his mind. Not yet 20 and already past his prime. Sprawled on the lounge, he heard someone messing with the lock. He instinctively bent his neck backwards, smooth, fine, black hairs tickling his neck as they shifted under gravity. A piercing gaze fell on the handle as it swung away in an arc, revealing a pale yellow tie hopping around the stomach of his roommate.  
“I’m home!” Makoto’s singsong voice caused a brief smile to involuntarily flash over Haru’s upturned face.

“Welcome back.” His voice fell out of his mouth lazily, as if it were only able come out with the assistance of the downward gradient. Makoto loosened his tie, and managed to find some open space on the lounge among Haru’s sprawled-out frame. His legs slid apart as he relaxed into the soft surface, leaving the stress of the day somewhere else for the night. “How’d today go?”

  
“Well, thank you for asking.” Smiling sweetly, Makoto begins excitedly recounting the somewhat mundane events of the day as though they were something thrilling. “Everything’s just about out of my hands now. We’ve finally found a maths teacher that’s on board with our philosophy to develop materials, Sakura has taken over payroll duties, so now I just need to manage our staff and keep everything nice and in check. Think of ways to expand the business, keep everything flowing nicely, maybe look around for a PR person to keep new customers coming in. It’s all straightforward from here on out.”

  
“I’m proud of you, Makoto.” It may not have sounded terribly sincere, but it was the best Haru knew how, and between these two communication didn’t always follow convention. “Let’s celebrate a little. What do you want me to make for dinner?”

“Hmmmmm.” Makoto was always pensive when it came to Haru’s cooking. Since he could cook just about anything and make it taste delicious, it was always a tough choice. And he could never quite get Haru’s nutritional needs out of mind. Swimmers need to mind their figure, after all, and keep their energy supplies up. So he can’t very well just having Haru eat whatever, especially in a time like this. But a blowout every once in a while is fine, right? “I don’t wanna put you to work for me, Haru. Let’s just cook an easy curry or something and go buy a nice cake. Or do we just go and eat out?”  
Haru seemed to deflate at the suggestion, and Makoto could almost hear all the thoughts bouncing around his head. _What if we run into a teammate, or the coach? I don’t have the energy to leave the house. It’s been so long since we’ve just had an evening at home the way we used to. Can we just have a rest?_ Makoto closed his eyes and smiled widely. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’ll run out, grab us a cake and while I’m gone you whip up something amazing, okay? How’s that sound?”

Haru’s anxious expression softened, knowing that Makoto was looking out for him. “Sounds good to me. Thanks.” Haru peeled himself away from the lounge and started ferreting through the cupboards, planning out a meal from whatever dregs he could find. “While you’re out, could you grab some more rice? We’re nearly out.”

“Roger.” Makoto’s voice echoed against the door, just loud enough for Haru to hear amid the open cupboards hid behind the kitchen counter. “Any requests for the cake?”

“We’re celebrating your success. You pick.” Makoto smiled back at the frigid words and slid out the door noiselessly. Haru sighed once again. There wasn’t much of anything in the house, truth be told. He wasn’t sure he could generate a dish worthy of the occasion. He could hear it already. Makoto hiding his disappointment, saying something unfairly kind. _If you made it, Haru, anything would be fine. We have the cake to celebrate anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. Simple is best, anyway._ Haru wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear something like that right now. This was all he could do to pay back Makoto’s support, so he wanted to do it right. But all they had in the fridge was mackerel.

Defeated, Haru threw together a marinade using whatever seasonings he could find. Soy sauce as a base. Mirin for sharpness. A teaspoon of sugar, for sweetness. Some garlic, garlic never hurt. And with that he’d exhausted his supplies, more or less, save for two packets of instant miso soup. Filleting the mackerel, he placed two servings in the improvised mixture and tossed them around as best he could. There wasn’t a lot of time for them to soak up the flavours, but, dutifully, he covered with some cling wrap and stuck them in the fridge for as long as possible. They’d fry up quickly, so he focussed on the other elements first. Prepare the rice. Just enough left for two. Mix up the two soup packets, because it stays hot for as long as it’s on the stove. He desperately tried to contrive something else to make the meal more complete, but there was no more meat or seasoning left in the pantry, so he came up short. The rice cooker beeped loudly, and Haru added what little vinegar he could salvage to make it sticky enough to handle with chopsticks. Kneeling in front of the fridge to get out the star of the dish, if such a thing were to exist in a dish so typical, he felt a weight on his shoulders heavier than the yellow parka he was wearing. Is this really a celebratory dinner? He even made Makoto fetch his own cake. _Perhaps I’m only good at taking advantage of others_ , he thought, in a moment of weakness. _Maybe I’m just not cut out to give back. A taker by birth._ Such thoughts floated around the otherwise-unoccupied space in Haru’s head as he grilled the mackerel, leaving just enough focus to ensure the fish was cooked well.

A sudden noise shocked Haru from his reverie. Distracted as he was, he didn’t at first notice it was the sound of the door opening, Makoto pushing it open with his back to protect the what Haru assumed to be the cake, bagged and balanced securely in his left hand while his right deftly pushed down the handle. “Back again!” Taking a second to arrange himself and bring his arms back to his sides, Makoto sniffed at the air cutely, like a corgi pretending to be a hunting dog. “Whatever it is, smells good!” Leaving the cake on the counter, he spun gracefully around, barely making eye contact or standing still long enough to make conversation. “I’ll be back out real quick, I’m just gonna change. This collar is killing me!”

Haru opened his mouth to respond, but by the time he’d put the words together Makoto was already out of earshot. He returned to his melancholy mackerel, finding it had finished cooking in the brief seconds he was distracted by his roommate’s entrance. In fact, one portion looked slightly overcooked, since it was closer to the flame of the stove. His mind tracked that portion obsessively as he assembled the meals on two trays – that would be his. A cold gaze fell on his creation with what could only be described as disdain. Some celebration this would be. A bowl of plain white rice, some dollar-store miso soup and a piece of mackerel, pointlessly marinated in nothing in particular. And not even enough for a second helping. Nothing but a cup of plain old tea to drink, either. He nonetheless delivered them to the table, blue eyes flittering over the two servings to identify his failure. At the very least, he’d give Makoto the better of the two.

With a triumphant slam of the door, Makoto emerged from his room looking much more comfortable. His tight-fitting business shirt had been exchanged for an oversized, short-sleeved t-shirt, striped thickly in white and green. The neck sat very low, exposing a considerable amount of shoulder and the beginnings of his chest. Barely visible underneath the hem of the long shirt were a pair of black gym shorts, leaving his legs in full view from mid-thigh to the floor. “Much better.” Makoto naturally spun into the chair opposite Haru on the table, casting his gaze first to his roommate and then to his food. “What do we have here?”

“Sorry I couldn’t make anything better. I haven’t been grocery shopping in a while.” The excuse sounded even more pathetic out loud than it had in Haru’s head.

“That’s okay. It’ not your fault the house is understocked, either of us could have gotten more food. I’m impressed you’ve managed to make this much, to be honest.” Clapping his hands together, he bowed his head slightly. “Itadakimasu.”

“Itadakimasu.” Haru responded in kind by sheer force of habit, smiling in a guilty sort of way. Makoto had somehow managed to say the one thing that wouldn’t make him feel disappointed he couldn’t deliver a better a meal. And honestly, he couldn’t tell if that made him feel better or worse. “I hope it tastes alright. I didn’t give the mackerel long to marinate, so the flavour might be weak.”

“To be perfectly honest Haru, I don’t think I’d know if it was.” Makoto managed a coherent sentence through a mouthful of mackerel meat and rice. After a quick gulp of miso soup, he added, “It tastes just as good as everything else you cook to me. If you’d not told me I’d never have known you’d done anything different. My taste isn’t as sensitive as yours.”

A selfish part of Haru flared up. _Maybe you could have taken the good bit of mackerel after all._ Ignoring the nagging voice, he reasoned that any person thinks these things on instinct. So long as he didn’t make anything of it, the thought itself was of no consequence. Brushing his distress aside, he smiled as gently as he could manage. “Well, I’m glad for that. But still, sorry I couldn’t do something more special.”

“It’s special enough just having a meal together. We don’t get to do that as often as we used to.” Neither of them could manage eye contact over that statement. It hung in the air, tense and sharp, making the room itself seem upset. They awkwardly ate in silence, save for the sounds of chopsticks and chewing, before Makoto cleared his throat and started again. “Y’know, Haru, I’ve missed this. Just you and me, the way it used to be. So, why don’t we get away for a little bit? I found this great place for rent out in the mountains, real cheap too. We could snap it up for a week or so, just go there and be ourselves for a while. No work, no class, no responsibilities.”

Haru’s eyes ignited with something between interest and anxiety. He wanted to go, more than anything. But he almost felt like it wasn’t fair. “Can you leave the company for that long? I don’t want anything to go wrong on my account.” It sounded blunt but honesty was the best way to keep things from souring.

“I’m sure they can manage without me now. Frankly, at this stage, I’m little more than a model for the ads. Besides, it’s all online anyway so I can handle it from out there if need be. C’mon, Haru, it’ll be great. Time for us to relax and recharge our batteries together.”

“But I can’t make you pay for it all…” Haru was putting up a token resistance, because he felt that this was somehow some kind of ploy that would just end up with him being the beneficiary of Makoto’s kindness one too many times.

“Don’t even think about that, I’m on a stable income now. It’s really out of the way, so it’s hardly anything to rent since no one wants to be there. And besides, you’re still the only one that can cook, so think of that as your share of the cost. Please, Haru. I need it every bit as much as you do.”

Haru sighed in defeat. He couldn’t say no those pleading eyes, let alone all of these perfectly reasonable counterarguments. “Well, if it’s only a week or so, I guess it’d be fun. Let’s do it.”

“Really?” At Haru’s nod, Makoto’s face erupted in the broadest smile in all of recorded history. “I’m so happy you agreed, Haru, it’s gonna be the best! Let’s start planning right away. When should we go? How much do we need to pack? It’ll be a pain to go shopping for groceries, though. Oh, but you can just get them delivered.” Makoto kept talking as much to himself as to anyone else as Haru slowly began clearing their plates. Putting them into the sink and rinsing off the last few pieces of food debris, he fished a knife out of the cutlery drawer and lazily pulled the cake towards himself with his left hand, dragging it closer by the handles of the bag. Once it was close enough to handle easily, he extracted it from first the bag, then the box, finding himself uncharacteristically excited to see what was inside.

“I hope you’re in the mood for sweet, Haru.” Without Haru noticing, Makoto had snuck up behind him. “It was a daily special at the little bakery on the corner. It’s their take on a black forest cake, apparently. They told me they did something special with it, but I can’t remember what exactly.” From appearances, it was certainly a black forest cake. Dark chocolate-coloured icing disguising two layers of sponge, held together with cream studded with small, vividly red glacé cherries, paired with a few on top for good measure. The whole affair measured about 4 inches across, a perfect size for two celebration-sized servings, and a strawberry, sliced three times lengthways and spread out, sat crowning the cake at the centre.

“It looks delicious. Wait a minute and I’ll have it over at the table. Do you want coffee to go with it?”

“I’ll be okay with just the cake. I’ll be in the bathroom for a bit.” Makoto briefly wrapped his arms around Haru from behind, not so much a hug as the closest equivalent to pat on the back that could be managed comfortably given the situation. Haru flinched a little at the touch – it wasn’t uncomfortable per se, but it was atypical. Makoto nosed a few stray hairs out of the way and spoke directly into Haru’s left ear. “Thanks for agreeing to come. It means a lot.” And with that, he disappeared down the hallway, giddily humming to himself. Haru was left standing in a state best defined as shock. What brought that on? Makoto was intensely cheerier than normal, and Haru took a somewhat perverse pleasure on knowing that he’d caused it, even if only by acquiescing to a request he’d wanted to acquiesce to anyway. But something seemed a little… unnatural. This amount of happiness seemed disproportionate to such a small event. Haru mulled it over a little, considering whether there was anything more to this than met the eye. He shook his head and berated himself for his suspicions. Makoto had probably been planning to take them on a trip somewhere from the day they moved in here. Of course he’d be excited to see it come to fruition, especially so given how busy he’d become and how much pressure he could see Haru under every day. Haru found himself excited beyond belief for the trip, ready to have some time with Makoto to just… be. Talk about things and stay up late and fall asleep on each other’s shoulders watching some weird thing on TV. The way things used to be. Smiling like an idiot despite himself, he nudged the strawberry from the centre onto one side of the cake and sliced cleanly down the centre. Sliding the knife underneath and balancing the half on the blade using one well-placed finger, he plated the two halves and placed a teaspoon on each plate. He waited for Makoto to return, a tinge of his excitement visible in now-controlled expression.

Neither could wait for the trip to begin.


	2. The Holiday Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two settle into their holiday home and are just generally a little flirty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Juuust noticed that doona may confuse some people - it's Australian English for duvet ^_^

Haru’s eyes sparkled when he first saw their cottage. “Mansion” was perhaps a more accurate descriptor – it stood two stories tall, maybe 300 metres wide and two or three rooms deep. Well-maintained gardens, with flowers blossoming in red and blues and purples in clever arrangements, framed a large, ornate double door. The building was painted in a conservative yet regal off-white and heavy curtains disguised the interior. It even had a wrought-iron gate and fencing, dark and starkly contrasted to the white of the house, with little fleur-de-lis features casting elegant shadows over the grass. But one question weighed heavily on Haru’s mind. “Does it have a pool?”

A quiet laugh bubbled forth from the seat next to him. “Y’know, we came all the way out here to get away from that. 90 minutes on a train and 20 minutes in a cab is a long way just for a pool.” Haru’s face fell and the light left his eyes. A grimace prefaced a somewhat reluctant revelation. “But of course it does.” _I know you too well not to get a pool, Haru._

The shine came back and a gentle smile spread over Haru’s face. “I love it already. Let’s have a nice weekend.” Makoto smiled back, in his usual way. Eyes closed, head tilted slightly to the left, but something seemed a little off. Were his lips pulled back further than normal? Maybe his eyes were shut too tightly. Something about it seemed not so much forced as exaggerated. Almost like he consciously thinking about acting natural rather than just relaxing into it and enjoying himself. _He’s probably just worried the academy won’t go so well without him._ “Make sure you relax and escape the stress too, Makoto.”

Slightly taken aback, Makoto looked confused for a split second, then relaxed back into his smile. There, that was what it meant to look like. “No need to worry about me, Haru. But thanks.”

“I do worry about you though. You spent years worrying about me so just think of it as returning the favour.”

“But you needed worrying over. Not as in incessant worrying, just making sure you kept to schedules, that sort of thing.”

“Exactly. And now you need worrying over. You’ve always put too much of yourself into other people’s problems and forgotten to take care of yourself. So let me do at least that much for you.”

Makoto dabbed at the corner of his eye as the taxi pulled to a stop. What happened to the taciturn, virtually mute Haru of their high school years? When did he become so honest and communicative? Not that there was any complaint, mind. The sensitive and caring side to Haru had always been there, he just didn’t like to show it. It was Makoto’s favourite thing about him, so seeing it out and about more often was anything but a shame. “Thanks.” Between the urge to cry and the urge to hug Haru, that was about all he could manage to choke out without his voice losing the illusion of evenness.

“Don’t mention it.” Haru’s normal aloof tone took over as they unpacked their bags from the boot and Makoto settled the charge with the taxi driver. He went for some kind of physical contact to try and add a touch of finality to the emotional moment in the car – a touch of the hand, a hug or something, he wasn’t quite sure – but he instead reached for the door handle at the last possible moment. “So, how long do we have this place for?” He had to raise his voice over the roaring engine of the departing taxi, leaving them stranded in a paradise for two.

“As long as we need.” No eye contact was made during the exchange, as both were otherwise quite preoccupied. Such a fine detail went unnoticed, as they are wont to do, but it could be that had eye contact been made this story could have played out very differently. “Here, you might need this.” Makoto produced a keyring from deep within a pocket of his coat and handed it to Haru, who blushed slightly when he realised he’d just gone to open a very obviously locked door. Looking away hurriedly to hide his expression, he slid the key cleanly into the key hole, the lock making a loud clunk as it turned. His hand already wrapped around the handle, a soft grunt escaped him as he pulled the heavy door away from its frame.

The pair gasped in unison at their first views of the interior. Immaculately kept, with a combination of plush carpets, high ceilings and red-carpeted staircases with dark wooden handrails gave the image of a palace scaled down to a private residence. “So, how much exactly are we paying for this place again?”

“Not nearly enough.” Makoto punctuated his statement with an impressed whistle as he slid off his shoes and took his first step onto the carpet. “It’s so soft! I’m almost scared to walk on it in case I damage it somehow.”

“I don’t think that’s too much of a worry. Just, maybe don’t eat or drink anything in here. White carpets stain too easily.” Haru knew Makoto still got clumsy sometimes. He grew very tall very quickly when they were about 14, and sometimes it was like he still wasn’t used to his new, larger body. “Well, let’s dump our suitcases first. I wanna get to the pool while the sun is still up.”

“Of course you do, Haru.” Makoto laughed as he reached his hand around the handle of his suitcase and swung it away from the floor so the wheels weren’t wearing tracks in the carpet and took a few steps backwards. “One bedroom is upstairs and the other’s downstairs. Which would you like?”

Haru thought it over for a few seconds. “I think you at least deserve the choice of rooms, Makoto.” After all the work he’d put in and all the money he’d put down, he’d earned at least that much.

“I really don’t mind, though. They both have beds, after all.”

“I don’t much mind, either.”

“But surely-”

“I’m not fighting you on this, Makoto. You choose.”

Makoto smiled in defeat. “Okay, you win. I’ll take the room upstairs.” Makoto cut off his sentence abruptly, as if he’d planned to continue, but thought better of it. “The view is probably really nice, so you can come up whenever.”

“Since when have we not just let ourselves into each other’s rooms whenever?” Haru turned away with his suitcase and set out to find his temporary lodgings.

Makoto let out a small shout as he turned to do the same. “Fair point.”

Haru walked into a spacious living room, carpeted identically to the entryway, with a stylish L-shaped brown leather lounge roping off a corner that was clearly meant to be the entertainment area. A television rested on a stand, and it was perhaps the least luxurious item in the house. It was by no means small, but not opulently large either. About the size you’d normally expect from any television-having household. The rest of the room was fairly unoccupied, with the occasional ottoman or small seat in the same colour as the lounge taking space around the walls. Two doors lead off on either side of the room, one to a dining room and the other to a corridor. Haru surmised his bedroom was probably down the corridor and the kitchen beyond the dining room, so he turned right down the corridor only to be greeted with 5 identical doors, two on each wall and an open one displaying a bathroom on the opposite end. He reasoned the bedroom would be one of the two nearest the bathroom, and the other a laundry. He opened the door on the left side first, finding his anticipated laundry, and quickly tried the right door.

What he found wasn’t so much a bedroom as it was a lounge room with a bed added for good measure. The soft carpet persisted into the room, and it was about as large as the main room in their apartment in Tokyo, except that was a combined lounge room and kitchen and this was a bedroom. The walls were still the same regal off-white, and a stylish black lightshade hung from the roof, hiding the light bulb from view and allowing light out only at the bottom and through a series of circular holes of varying size wrapping around the cylindrical body. The bed was the undisputed centrepiece of the room, standing in the centre of the wall furthest from the door, and dressed in bright colours. Stripes of blue, orange and a pale, sandy brown, ran across doona covering the queen sized bed and two pillows in matching pillowslips sat above two plain white pillows on each half of the bed. Three smaller, round pillows, one each of the three colours, dressed the gap between the two stacks of rectangular pillows. On the opposing wall hung a large print of what Haru could only assume was a famous modern painting. It was uncomplicated, but attractive, with three broad curves of vivid rainbows of colour intersecting one another on a dark black background, creating a shape resembling a black, bloated triangle slightly off the centre of the print and little half-ovals firing off each corner. It somehow gave the impression of an inside-out Venn diagram. Next to it stood a set of sliding doors Haru soon confirmed to be a wardrobe and on the neighbouring wall were two windows that, while being large in an absolute sense, were somewhat dwarfed by the size of the room. Each was hidden behind curtains in the same brown as the bedspread, but slivers of sunlight slipped through the cracks between them. Haru dropped his suitcase at the foot of the bed, and noticed another door on the same wall as the entry. Curious, he pulled it open to find a direct passage to the bathroom, although he didn’t stay looking for long. Quickly pulling out piles of meticulously folded clothes and transferring them to the bed (he’d get them to the wardrobe later), he quickly revealed a small stash of swimsuits he’d packed to the bottom. Anyone other than Haru would have said the five of them were identical, but he nonetheless agonised over them for some time, having difficulty selecting which one he was in the mood for. A knock on the door interrupted his reverie, and Makoto popped into the room almost out of nowhere.

“I see you’ve wasted no time.” Makoto had shrugged off his coat in his room, revealing the loose shirt and track pants underneath, and a flash of green in his hand indicated he’d also dug out his swimsuit first thing. “What do you think of the place?”

“Part of me keeps expecting to see a butler walk in.” Haru answered without taking his eyes away from his swimsuits. The second from the left was looking appealing. It was too loose to race but it felt comfortable, and the fabric could move slightly with the water, tickling his skin as he moved. Grabbing it, he turned to face Makoto and found him closer than expected. He’d managed to move from the door over to the bed without making a noise, and he turned to face Haru leaning on the bed with one hand, all of 3 inches separating them. A small part of Haru’s mind was surprised he hadn’t seen Makoto’s feet next to his suitcase. Taking an involuntary step backward, Haru disguised the movement as the first step in his path to the door. “But let’s just get to the pool.”

Makoto smiled, almost defeatedly, as though he’d been expecting a very different outcome. “All right – it’s down the other hall, past the kitchen. It’s all indoors, so we can go any time no matter the weather.”

They made their way back down the long hall, talking about nothing in particular. “It’s so far back to town for groceries, so we’ll have to make sure to plan our meals well.”

“Way ahead of you, Haru. The supermarket here delivers all over since a lot of older couples retire out here, so we can just order our groceries in.”

“We’ll have to go out tonight, though. There’s nothing in here yet, is there?”

“I placed an order for the basics and some random stuff about a week ago. It should be around in a couple of hours.”

Haru sighed into a smile. “You really planned every last thing, didn’t you?”

“You expected less?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, I’m glad you trust me to handle everything now. If there’s anything specific you want, just let me know and I’ll sort it out.”

“I can handle at least some things by myself, you know. I don’t want to make you feel like you’re doing everything.”

“It’s okay, Haru, really. I like to keep busy a little, even when I’m off duty, so I’d appreciate you letting me baby you a little.” He opened a door, revealing a full-sized pool completely enclosed by glass walls and ceilings, so you’d almost feel you were outside if not for the carefully controlled temperature.

“Well, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so bad.” They both turned towards a small rack on the wall built to house your clothes while you swam, and turned away from each other to change, as much out of habit as out of modesty. Haru finished first, leaving his clothes and a towel on the rack and catching a view of Makoto out of the side of his eye as he turned. “You’ve certainly kept up the exercise, Makoto. You look exactly like you did in school.”

“Really?” He blushed as he pulled his swimsuit up over his second leg. “Sometimes I feel like I’m losing muscle. But I’m lucky you’re still swimming, Haru. Going with you to the gym or swimming every once in a while makes it easy to stay in shape.”

“I’m glad I’m good for something, then.” Haru said it as playfully as he was physically capable of being, but it still sounded a little too serious, so he quickly turned around and walked towards the edge of the pool to try and divert attention. The attempt wasn’t lost on Makoto, who had years of experience deciphering Haru’s brief moments of emotions.

“Don’t say that, Haru, even as a joke. There are plenty of other reasons I’d keep you around.”

“Like what?” Haru wasn’t being so much self-deprecating as he was genuinely curious.

“Well, I have fun when I’m around you, isn’t that enough?” An unchanging stare from Haru made Makoto think perhaps it wasn’t enough, so he tried to keep going. But most of the things he thought of were either too embarrassing or too risky to say out loud. “Well, if nothing else I need you because you can cook. All I can make is charcoal.”

Haru must have let a hint of annoyance show in his face, because Makoto looked like he was readying an apology. Haru didn’t particularly feel annoyed though, or at least if he was he didn’t really understand why. What was it he was expecting to hear, anyway? He tried to think about it, but could only manage a few seconds without getting distracted by the shimmering water in front of him. So he wordlessly dove in and washed his thoughts away in the pleasantly warm water. It was more inviting, somehow, when it was like this. No lane ropes, no clocks, no whistles. If not for the soft buzz of the filter, you could almost make yourself believe this was a totally natural body of water. Being here, with no one looking, was exactly what he needed.

Well, Makoto was looking, but he didn’t count. He’d seen this so many times before, it was almost more natural having him there than not. Recognising he hadn’t felt a splash, Haru looked up and saw Makoto still standing at the edge of the pool, eyes fixed on Haru.

“Makoto? Everything all right?”

He shook his head vigorously like he was shaking off the vestiges of a nap that was cut too short, making his slightly shaggy hair flop around wildly. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking.”

“Thinking what?”

Makoto blushed and turned his head away, like it was difficult to say this out loud. “You know… you really are beautiful, Haru. The way you just… slide into the water like that. It’s mesmerising, like you’re some kind of sculpture in a museum or something.”

Haru smiled, despite himself. “Stop messing around and just get in the pool, Makoto.”

“Roger.” Haru found himself almost involuntarily observing Makoto’s form. The way he prepared to dive, and the way his body arched to make the entry easier. He didn’t give a second thought to the technique, but he wanted to burn the image into his mind. He didn’t get a chance to think about why before Makoto came back up from the water again and splashed at him, laughing. “Who’s the one spacing out now?”

A particularly large droplet slid down Haru’s hair like rain off a leaf and traced a path down his already-wet face. A childish part of him couldn’t resist the urge. “You know this means war, right?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Makoto disappeared underwater as Haru went to make his first strike.

And some hours were whittled away in this pursuit, but they were both far too busy to notice.


	3. Trouble in Paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay so things finally happen ^_^ be warned, there's nothing non-con or anything like that but it's still a little bit on the grey side, morally. Nothing really happens but this is the point where you discover this story may not be your thing :)

And so passed the weekend, in a flurry of ultimately meaningless pursuits and talks about nothing until 1 in the morning. Neither of them were fond of drinking, but they didn't need any assistance to enjoy each other's company, so from the outside no one would have noticed. 

The only complaint perhaps would have been the catering. Haru cooked, as was usual, but in his relaxation, found himself trending back to old habits. Mackerel grilled with salt, mackerel grilled in miso, just mackerel, mackerel in soups and in curries and a hundred other ways. Delicious, naturally, but somewhat monotonous. And so, it was decided, tonight they would have something else for  dinner. What precisely that would be was quite a different matter. 

“Hmmmmmm…” Makoto’s face contorted with indecision as he considered all the possibilities. “It's a tough choice. There's so much food out there!” He threw his hands behind his head and furrowed deeper in to the cushions of the seven-seated lounge behind him. His left leg kicked up slightly to counterbalance the backwards motion, pulling up bullet straight and revealing the back his knee. The orange of his shirt stood loudly against the black of the lounge, almost making it look like his deceivingly light frame was emerging from the pillows like some kind of furniture-themed Moses rather than laying back into them.

“Start at the basics, then. Japanese or Western food?” Ever the pragmatist, Haru’s oversized blue shirt rustled as he twisted himself around. He had been lying on the other arm of the couch, with his back down and his feet towards Makoto, but for some reason it felt more natural to be lying stomach down, with his face closest to his companion. Maybe he just didn't want to have to speak so loud. Finding himself out of room for his lower legs, he elegantly folded his knees and crossed his ankles, so his calves extended upwards and forwards towards his head, left foot tucked firmly under right. Rolling up his lower back and propping his torso up with his elbows, he looked over at Makoto awaiting a response, but found him looking a little distracted. 

His green eyes looked a little unfocused, like he was looking at something through a veil that was only partially transparent, so its form was visible but undefined. One side of his mouth hung a little slack, barely noticeable but for Haru’s knowing eyes, and the muscles of his back tensed, giving him the air of a vaguely startled animal, barely lucid, all of its attention devoted to preparing to pounce on its target. “Makoto? You feeling okay?”

He shook his head vigorously and his unkempt hair flicked wildly from side to side, leaving a comet trail behind the motion. A measure of lucidity seemed to return to him, almost as though he was leaving a trance. “Yeah, I'm fine”, he said, almost laughing out the words. “Just got a little distracted, that's all.”

“If you say so.” Haru decided not to press the matter any further. He couldn't say he didn't have his suspicions but he wasn't in much of a position to investigate them. “Your hair has gotten long, Makoto.”

“Has it? I've not noticed.” He absentmindedly twirled a lock of it through his fingers, finding it a lot closer to his shoulder than he remembered it being. “I guess I might need to get it cut, then.”

“You can do it when we go back.” Haru had lost count of exactly how many days they'd been here, but it was longer than just the weekend. That said, he wasn't going to be the one that insisted they leave. This affair had been far too enjoyable to bring it to a premature close. Nonetheless, he figured eventually the owner of the house would come kick them out at some stage, and being prepared for that would probably be a good thing. “Speaking of, how much longer do we have?”

“I told you Haru, as long as we need.”

“Yeah, but could I have that in days and hours, please?”

“Hmmm. Y’know, I haven't been keeping track. I'll check the calendar after dinner and get back to you on that.”

“We still don't know what we're having for dinner, Makoto.” He may have imagined it, but Haru thought he saw the slightest relaxing in the other man’s shoulders, as though he was glad for the change of topic. Well, most people would when switching from paperwork and scheduling to dinner, wouldn't they? 

Haru made a move to stand up, pulling himself up onto his knees first, then lowering his torso onto his feet before twisting them free and lowering them to the ground. Leaning forward over his knees to gain the momentum to stand, he noticed more strain through his hamstrings than normal. He needed to start practicing properly again soon or he'd keep slipping back. The familiar feeling of dread settled like a weight into the pit of stomach, but he'd long since learned to disguise it in his face. Not breaking stride, he made his way to the kitchen to inspect their supplies, hoping to come up with some kind of inspiration.

The verdict - not much. There was some chicken thigh they'd ordered on a whim, in case they tired of mackerel, so that was decided on. But what exactly to do with it? They had some milk, so perhaps soak the thighs, bread them and fry them? Well, it sounded lovely in theory but they didn't have anything to bread them with, shy of some flour. But if he just ducked into town quickly, and picked them up, then they could have a chicken katsu-don. Shred some cabbage and carrots for nutrition and it'd make quite the meal, actually. 

“How does chicken katsu sound?” Haru pushed his voice as loud as he could to be heard from the kitchen cupboards.

Makoto, who had followed leisurely behind, responded more quietly. “Sounds good to me.” Haru jumped a little - he hadn't noticed Makoto follow him in, so he'd expected him to be much further away. The closeness wasn't so much unwelcome as unexpected. “But what are we going to fry them in?”

“I'll have to run into town and grab some breadcrumbs, but that's fine. I could use the exercise.”

Makoto groaned loudly in disapproval. “That's a lot of effort, Haru. It's at least an hour's walk each way. Let's just get it ordered.”

“Makoto, it's just breadcrumbs. We shouldn't bother the store just for that.” A spark of humour flickered in the air between them, as they both noticed that, just a couple of years ago, the roles in this conversation would almost definitely had been reversed. 

“That's what the delivery service exists for! And we pay extra, so it's not like we're costing them money or anything.”

“Well then, look at it as a cost-saving measure. I'm just gonna go, Makoto, it makes more sense.”

“Haruuuuu~” Makoto cutely whined and pouted as he fell back into a breakfast chair that was on the opposite side of the counter. “Don't be so stubborn!”

“I could say the same to you. It'll be good to get outside anyway.”

Something about that seemed to strike a nerve in Makoto. His head lowered, the curves of his skull casting shadows over his eyes, while his shoulders fell in a defeated yet determined way. “If you're gonna be like that, then I just won't let you out.”

The statement caught Haru off guard - what was that even supposed to mean? He knew where the doors were, so Makoto couldn't really force him to stay. “Makoto? What do you mean?”

“Just that. The doors are all locked and I won't open them for you.”

“Doors lock from the inside, y’know.”

“Not these ones.”

That was all the confirmation Haru needed. Something was wrong here. Makoto’s tone was cold like steel and sent shards of icy fear through Haru’s body. With every muscle operating as much on instinct as on command, he scrambled out of the kitchen to make his way to the front door. He grabbed at door frames to aid his wild spins around corners, more concerned with getting out than with not crashing into walls. 

Eventually finding himself at the front door, he first pushed at the handle without much thought at all, pushing and pulling and turning and trying whatever motions he could to make it move, but it was locked firmly in place in every direction. His first attempts thwarted, Haru desperately scanned the setup for any kind of lock mechanism - a button, or a knob to turn, anything that might release it - but his eyes fell on the keyhole. His blood ran cold with the realisation.  _ I can't get out without a key.  _

As if on cue, the ringing sound of metal on metal rang out from behind him and he whirled around in response, to see Makoto dangling a ring of keys from the outstretched index finger of his right hand. “You might be needing these.” The words weren't spoken as much as drawled, gratingly, like stone grinding on cold stone.

“Don't joke like this, Makoto. Give me the keys.” Haru choked out what little sound he could, but he could hardly hear himself over the blood pulsing through his ears.

“Why would I? You're so cute when you're scared, Haru-chan.” As he spoke, Makoto began to slowly advance on his friend-turned-victim. With nowhere left to run, Haru found himself flattening against the door in the futile hope of prolonging whatever was to come next.

“I'm dead serious, Makoto. Let me out.”

“Sure thing.” His tone was unexpectedly honest, and it caught Haru off guard. Was that really it? Was this whole thing just a big prank? “On one little condition.”

Of course it wasn't that simple. “And what might that be?” Haru found himself turning into to the door slightly, trying to avoid eye contact. 

Makoto smiled calmly, normally, as he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket. “Put these on. I'll wear the other. I can't have you running away on me.” Haru's teeth ground against each other in frustration as he turned his face further away from his friend.  _ How long has he had those on him? _

_ “ _ Don't come any closer with those things”, he spat, more on principle than out of willpower. He was feeling so drained. There were so many questions going around in his head, but his attention was weighed down by desperately formulating escape plans he knew would be useless. 

“C’mon, Haru, don't be like this. Is it really so bad being here with me?” Makoto seemed almost hurt at Haru's fear, as if he was supposed to be ecstatic at the arrangement.

“That's not quite the point.” 

Makoto closed the remaining distance between them in three long, purposeful strides. His left hand wrapped around Haru's chin and pulled his face back to his front, and his right slipped carefully, almost kindly, through the narrow gap between Haru's torso and left arm, pinning him in place from that side. “So, does that mean you'll stay here with me?” Makoto used his advantage in weight to draw their faces closer together, and his overgrown hair fell around the edges of Haru's vision like a curtain.

Haru squirmed in response, unable to find the words to properly articulate his feelings, or, more accurately, unable to figure out what he was actually feeling. Makoto continued to move closer, pressing their bodies together and raising his left leg slightly, pressing his knee against the wall so that Haru was almost completely pinned against the door. 

In a moment of clarity, Haru noticed what was so unsettling. Makoto was acting so normal, like this was just another day. It made him wonder how many times this had nearly happened. How long had this Makoto, that looked and sounded and acted exactly the same way, been hidden away? How many times had they been alone together, in each other's rooms, on the walks home, in their apartment, where Makoto had the opportunity to do this? How many times had Makoto thought about doing it, but held himself back because of circumstances or better judgement? How long had he been putting this so-called trip together, finding a house with all the right fixtures, earning the money, waiting for a moment to pounce? He couldn't quite bring himself to believe that everything up to this point was just a part of a grand plan to trap him into a room. His confused feelings could only communicate themselves as squirms and convulsions as he tried to free himself from underneath the larger man’s frame. 

“Well, I guess I'll take this as a no.” Makoto eased up slightly under the pressure from Haru's awkward movements, hanging his head on Haru's shoulder. “Do whatever you like Haru, but I can't let you leave.” Seizing his chance, Haru wrested himself free of the oppressive embrace and resumed his clumsy running. He didn't really think much of where, just not here. Maybe there was a side door, something, anything he could use to his advantage. He was doubtful, but the thing ray of hope was all he had left to cling to. Running every which way, throwing open doors hapzardly, pressing himself against walls to try and find the hint of a doorframe, he surely would have looked insane to anyone without knowledge of the situation. 

After about half an hour of wild searching, he considered his fears confirmed. There was no other way out. Deflated and defeated, he found himself making his way toward the pool without much conscious input. Not so much opening the door as just leaning against it, he made his way inside to find Makoto waiting.

“You're an easy read, Haru. I knew you'd make your way here eventually.”

“What of it?” Haru couldn't manage any bite or bitterness in the phrase, just an empty statement devoid of meaning. 

Makoto smiled again, disarmingly normal. “Nothing. I quite like that about you.”

“Don't talk like that after all this.”

“Like what?”

Haru grit his teeth together, wanting to yell but lacking the energy and the feeling. Instead, he set an indignant course for the diving blocks, but found Makoto's arm in his way.

“I won't let you do that this time.”

“Do what?”

“Run away from me.” His voice sounded bitter, almost angry, like there was a lasting resentment under the surface. “Whenever you've had the slightest problem, all you've ever done is try to swim it away. You just run to the pool, like the water can give you some kind of support.” Haru's already exhausted mind couldn't quite process what was going on, so Makoto continued uninterrupted. “I've been here the whole time, Haru, waiting. Always available to help you, always wanting to talk to you and help you with your problems. But it's like you never even noticed. You'd just go to a pool for comfort. I don't get it, Haru, I never have. Am I just not enough? What do you get from water that I can't give you? Why don't you ever let me comfort you when you're lost, or sad, or angry?”

To be honest, Haru almost preferred it this way. An unreasonable and unstable Makoto doing these things made more sense than the normal one. He wanted this to fit cleanly into a nice, time-worn narrative - Makoto got fed up over time, and he snapped, and this was a out-of-character side of him that could be made to go away. But increasingly it seemed like this was the same Makoto he’d always known, and this side had always been there just a few centimetres out of sight. Haru tried to find the energy to form some kind of sentence, to put the world back in order, but he felt like his will had been sanded down to dust.

“C’mon, Haru, say something. Anything. You can talk to me. I’m here for you. I always have been.” Makoto seemed to be about evenly split between crying and yelling, and it just kept adding to Haru’s confusion. Makoto hung his head at Haru’s silence, and seemed to steel some part of himself. With no warning, and with smoothness that would almost make it seem practiced, he bent his knees and drove his shoulder into Haru’s unguarded stomach. Straightening up quickly, Haru found himself slung over his taller friend’s right shoulder, bent around at the hips with no way of finding the ground. His face fell down to the small of Makoto’s back, and his legs were slung over his front. His arm wrapped around Haru’s legs, presumably to lock them in place, but it wasn’t as though Haru had the wherewithal to move them anyway. Wordlessly, they moved through the house, Haru’s blue eyes not seeing, both on account of Makoto’s back and his despondent brain. 

Haru felt them come to a stop, and Makoto lowered him onto something soft. He vaguely realised that he’d expected to be thrown, he’d expected it to hurt, but it hadn’t. He came to notice it was his bed he’d be laid on, flat on his back, and what little amount of thought he had turned in a disastrous direction. Makoto climbed on and laid on the left of his listless friend, wrapping a lazy arm around his midriff. “C’mon, Haru. Let’s talk.” His breath rustled a few stray hairs from the side of Haru’s left eye, creating a briefly ticklish sensation. He pushed himself in closer, his hips set perpendicular to Haru’s, and began to roll himself over on top of Haru. He slid his right leg between Haru’s, ready to separate them, and his hands fell into awkward positions, one between Haru’s side and his right arm and one of the left side of his face. There was maybe 15 centimetres between their faces, and Makoto began to slowly lower himself down, close enough that they could feel each other’s breath. 

Haru wanted to be scared, honestly, but he just didn’t have it left in him to feel anything much at all. There was nothing left between them, and Haru closed his eyes as much by instinct as by choice. A second stretched out for what felt like forever, and Makoto let out a long sigh and rolled away, leaving them lying on their backs beside each other.

“I could never do that to you, Haru. You know that, right?” Haru wasn’t sure he knew anything anymore, so all he could manage in reply was to turn away, showing Makoto his back. 

A sense of finality set in and Makoto grunted softly as he jackknifed himself to a sitting position. “I’ll leave you alone for a little while, okay? Mull everything over and see how you feel in the morning.” The soft sounds of footsteps made their way towards the door, and the lower half of Makoto’s frame came into eyeshot. His low voice rang out from the door. “What about dinner?”

Haru indignantly turned back away from Makoto, and by extension from the rest of the world. “Cook for yourself.”


	4. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is really short but they needed some time to just let off steam a little bit :)

Haru’s body was perfectly still, but his mind was reckless. He no longer felt under threat, so without the adrenalin he was finally able to actually look at his situation, and try to figure out what on earth had just happened. He was trapped, for all intents and purposes. There were no external doors except for the front and back, and the back only led to a small yard with fences too high and too smooth to consider climbing unassisted. The windows were probably too robust to break, and many, including the one on the wall Haru’s hazy eyes faced, were capable of being locked shut, so it would be odd if Makoto hadn't planned far enough ahead to do so. Even if he could make it into the front yard, he still had the issue of the fences and gate. His only option for escape would be the steal the keys, but he had no idea where to even start on that. 

With that line of thought exhausted, Haru found his mind turning to the even less pleasant topic of why this had all happened. Makoto had seemed so  _ normal  _ the whole time. Had he always had this in him? And how detailed was this plan? He'd found a place where the doors locked only by key, and where they could get groceries delivered readily so there was no real reason for them to leave. He'd paid god knows how much for all the necessary resources - the house and, Haru reluctantly recalled, the handcuffs and probably a million different restraints and devices to deny Haru freedom at every turn. It was well-developed and that was terrifying, because it meant he'd been planning it for a long time.

But the worst part of all was that Haru couldn't quite bring himself to hate Makoto for it. Legally, this was pretty open-and-shut - Makoto was the perpetrator of some, probably very large, number of indictable offences and Haru the victim of all of them, so by that logic there should be a least a margin of dislike. Morally, it was reprehensible and personally it was a huge shock to their friendship, but somehow Haru just couldn't feel like it was as bad as he knew it should be. Makoto had been too good, for too many years, for it all to unravel over one incident, no matter how extreme. It couldn't possibly have all been some ridiculously long con to set up this plan. That was quite literally impossible - it had been too long, and too consistent, and Makoto was always kind to others as well, not just Haru, so it wouldn't add up that it was all an act. But then that meant he had to come to terms with the fact that the caring Makoto he'd always known was capable of this, and that wasn't such an easy proposition. Make excuses all you like, there were definitely more reasonable ways to go about this. Ones that don't involve criminal acts, at the very least. 

That, Haru determined, was the crux of the issue - why had Makoto felt it necessary to go this far? No matter what approach he used to think it through, there was just no answer that made sense.

* * *

 

Meanwhile, Makoto adjusted his glasses as he looked at a set of spreadsheets. He wasn't reading them so much as placating himself with them. Now that the secret was out, and they were stuck here for an indefinite amount of time, he needed to monitor the company again and keep profits rolling in to fund their new lifestyle. Haru's reaction was, all in all, quite reasonable, but Makoto couldn't deny he'd been holding out hope that Haru would have accepted it calmly, with some cool line like “I wasn't planning on going anywhere else anyway” and they'd just continue with their little romantic getaway, or better yet, it somehow didn't end up this way at all. That they'd neatly wind up falling into each other's arms and Haru would never even need to know how much Makoto had planned. But, of course, the most likely scenario was the one that had just played out in front of them. The question was now how to proceed. 

Makoto sighed. He hated every part of this. He hated that he'd managed to bring himself to hurt Haru like this, and hated that he had every intention of continuing. So, he resolved not hurt Haru any more than what he already had. That meant any kind of frontal assault of affection was out. But Haru could be so dense he wasn't sure he had many other effective choices. 

He could try pampering him, getting gifts and trying to make food that didn't taste like battery acid, doing little things for him to make him feel special. But Haru would probably read that badly, like Makoto was trying to buy his way out of apologising and/or releasing him. And honestly, that might be closer to the truth than Makoto dared to admit. 

He could try being cold and withholding affection, seeing if Haru would open up more to try and restore the normal balance in their relationship,if such a thing existed anymore. He doubted Haru would take offence, per se, seeing as there was already a distinct lack of affection in Makoto’s actions recently. But he wasn't sure he could even manage. He did have very genuine feelings for Haru, even if his expression was a little unhealthy, so holding back affection wouldn't be easy. He'd managed to pacify himself for years with little gestures that any observer could write off as them being close friends, but stopping even them might drive him even more mad than he already was. It'd be tantamount to cutting off his arm at this stage - his feelings for Haru were one of the few things he'd always held constant, no matter the situations around him.

There was really only one recourse left - don't change anything. Keep acting the exact same way, and don't even acknowledge the elephant in the room. Makoto knew this was probably the most high-risk strategy of all - there was an even spilt between Haru lulling back into long-worn habits, or gradually going insane as the undercurrent of resentment boiled him to breaking point. His spreadsheets blurred in front of his eyes as his attention strayed further and further from them. 

He slid his glasses off his face and laid them on the desk, rubbing between his eyes. Tendrils of self-loathing pulled at the back of his mind and a need to eat rumbled mostly unnoticed in his stomach, leaving him with a headache and a stomachache, and surviving the tension from earlier had left most of the rest of him rather achy as well, so he collapsed onto the bed and curled into himself the way he'd done on many a dark night before this. Knees pulled as close to chest as he could manage, face tucked away from the unfair world in the nook of a shoulder. Finding some small glimmer of comfort in his own embrace, he smiled bitterly to himself as he felt the loose keys fall out of his pocket. He'd have to do something about that. He couldn't have them falling out just anywhere. How, exactly, had it come to this?

After some time, they both found themselves in a reluctantly peaceful sleep, although neither of them ever got dinner after all the trouble they'd had over it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Makoto reminisces about how he got to this stage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned tw for internalised-homophobia induced depression/self-hate.  
> Forgive me my country in right in the middle of an SSM debate right now and I got super pissed so I just kinda ~went~

Well, they had to eat eventually, and luck would have it that they both got hungry at the same time. Turns out, no matter how much you may try, it's impossible to avoid a housemate indefinitely.

“Morning”, Makoto chirped from his position on the counter as Haru entered. “Did you sleep well?”

Haru made his best attempt at completely ignoring Makoto altogether. _Get the food, go back to your room, get away as soon as you can._ It wasn't so much that he was afraid of Makoto or angry at him as he was just unsure. He didn't know what he felt but seeing him there, smiling like nothing was wrong, made whatever it was flare up and threaten to consume him, and honestly he was more frightened of that than of his entrapment. More than anything he just wanted it to make sense, and right at the minute it felt like he was only going to get there if he was alone.

Maintaining something of an brusque silence, broken only by the rustling of plastic as Haru pulled two pieces of bread out of the loaf and slid them into the toaster, minutes oozed by like glycerol over a microscope slide, catching and sticking and generally glacial. The mechanical slide of the toaster saved them from the empty silence, and without waiting to butter it or even grabbing a plate, Haru made long strides back towards the exit, attempting to draw the awkward meeting to a close without further suffering.

This was, of course, not to be, as he found Makoto standing between himself the hallway. “Move, Makoto. I'm going to eat in my room.”

“So you can still speak!” Makoto chuckled at his own rude joke until his mirth was cut short by an icy glare from Haru that said everything he needed to hear. _Of course I can talk, I just didn't want to talk to_ **_you._ ** Nevertheless, he persisted with his attempt at socialising. “Say, Haru, let’s talk this out. We can make this work! We can move here long term, maybe even get a pet! I've always wanted my own cat, I got so tired of feeding strays and them never being affectionate in return.”

Another bolt of ice ran through Makoto as Haru narrowed his eyes even further, placing one leg back like he was getting ready to run. _Ahh,_ he realised, _that sounded a bit too much like what I said to him yesterday._ What thoughts were running through Haru’s mind right now? Did he take that to mean Makoto looked at him like a stray cat? Makoto turned his head to the side, unable to meet Haru's stern gaze, and instinctively took hold of a lock of hair and twirled it in his hand in an effort to keep his composure. What could he say? How could he defuse this?

Failing to come up with a solution, Makoto lowered his arm and slid out of the entryway, Haru making good on the opportunity without waiting so much as a second. “Haruka.” Makoto’s voice, low and serious, doubled the gravitas of using Haru’s full name, something he'd probably never done before. “I'll be waiting. Come and talk to me when you're ready.”

Haru made no indication he'd even heard the words, continuing to walk without breaking stride. Makoto sighed yet again and slid back against the wall, finding himself completely out of energy from even just that short exchange.

_Disgusting._

A familiar voice reached out from the back of his mind, echoing around in his head like it belonged there. When had he first heard it, again? It'd been in residence so long it almost felt like a part of him now. Forcing himself onto his feet, he washed the plate he'd eaten his breakfast off in a juvenile attempt to drown out the ringing in his ears, the buzz of confusion and isolation that these moods brought with them. He had half a mind to go back to his bedroom and lay down till it passed, but the thought of climbing a staircase seemed like it was just too much work, so he found himself attempting to lie on the lounge, knees slightly bent to fit his long body on comfortably.

_Disgusting._

He tried to pinpoint the time this had first happened. _Ah, was it then?_ Casting his mind back, he found the memories. He was in primary school, and he felt like his world had been pulled out from under him. The fisherman in the town over was gone, and the goldfish that was the last memory of him was gone too. Suddenly, the world seemed like such a different place. A cruel and uncontrollable place, full of wanton destruction that could turn on you at a moment’s notice. His parents tried to support him through it, but Ran and Ren had just been born, so they both had their hands full, meaning he often found himself floating over to Haru's house after swim practice. It wasn't like they'd talk about it all the time, or that Haru was the emotional support he needed - it just so comforting to have something constant, something that hadn't changed at all. Haru was still the same, slightly distant but begrudgingly friendly. They still played the same games and ate the same food, so Makoto could almost fool himself into forgetting the rest of the world. In retrospect, not the healthiest coping mechanism, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

A few weeks passed like this and Makoto could really only feel like himself when he was around Haru. The rest of the time, he was just caught in this indescribable confusion where nothing seemed permanent. This hadn't managed to slip under Haru's radar - they'd not known each other too long at this stage, a few months or so, but long enough that Haru realised Makoto wasn't quite right. And of course, with the combination of Haru's own straightforwardness and that of all children yet to develop a sense of delicacy, he saw no route forward other than attacking the issue directly. One afternoon, Makoto had come up to Haru's as normal to get out of his parent’s hair while they reared the twins a little, or so he said.

“Are you sure that's all there is to it?” Haru drew out the question with no warning, hoping to catch Makoto off guard.

A moment’s hesitation betrayed the truth before Makoto slid back into his comfortable smile. “Of course. What else could it be?”

“Do you really think I haven't noticed, Makoto?”

And somehow, that was all it took. Makoto collapsed into a cluster of sobs and sniffles in Haru's arms, and everything came spilling out. “I… I just don't know where to look anymore. It was so sudden and now I can't stop thinking… what if the same thing happened to me or my parents or you…” Incoherent half-sentences puntuctated graceless sobs as Haru watched on in silence, like a guardian. Gradually, they subsided as Makoto regained his composure. After what seemed like hours, but in reality had only been a couple of minutes, he breathed a ragged, but steady, breath and put on a pained smile. “Sorry to put that on you, Haru. But thanks for listening.”

Haru turned away, making to walk further into the house. His head tilted back over his left shoulder, revealing one sharp eye. “For what it's worth, I don't plan to be going anywhere. I'll stay with you.”

Those words blew away the cloud over Makoto like a warm north wind, leaving a summer free of worries in its wake. He couldn't explain it - he was never worried that anyone would leave him by choice, only by force, but the statement of intent seemed to be enough. The conviction to stay together, if nothing else, reminded him that it was pointless to fear that which was beyond his control. That alone frayed a loose end to the knot that had settled in his stomach, and while he wasn't exactly over it, he had a place to start now.

“Are you going to stand in the entryway all day?” Haru's harsh invitation brought him back into himself, and he quickly made a move over to stand next to him.

“Sorry to make you wait.” A smile, truly genuine once again, spread across Makoto’s face.

It wasn't there to stay, sadly. Something seemed _different_ about Haru now. Makoto would find his eyes drifting back to Haru if he wasn't consciously directing his attention at something else, and couldn't explain how it was so entertaining just to look at him. He felt something instinctive inside him - a want, a need, to be closer with Haru. To be more than friends, more than even family. He wasn't quite sure exactly what that meant, but he just couldn't get Haru out of his head. If he had to put a name to it, he'd suppose it would be love.

_Disgusting._

That was the first time he'd heard that sinister voice echo in the back of his head. If only he knew then how intimately familiar he'd come to be with it, perhaps he'd have done something different, tried to learn how to make it quiet, make it go away. But without the benefit of hindsight, he decided it was best just to ignore it.

It was the combination of this voice and the hormonal rage of puberty that really created problems. Haru was beautiful, and only became more beautiful as he matured. A thin waist, surrounded by a toned body, and a striking face with sharp cheekbones. Hair, fine like a curtain of silk, hid stunningly blue eyes, and his smile was as dazzling as it was rare. Makoto found himself not just obsessed with Haru emotionally, but physically, wanting, needing to be closer, not just as friends but as lovers.

_Disgusting._

He couldn't stop his feelings, but there was a part of him that couldn't accept them. They were both guys, right? Wasn't he meant to feel this way about a girl? Just like in all the stories, right, that's how it was meant to be.

_Disgusting._

He couldn't let anyone know. He couldn't let _Haru_ know. He'd never be able to return these feelings, these horrible, disgusting and totally all-consuming feelings. Makoto couldn't help but imagine how differently it might play out from that day. How quickly Haru could rescind his promise to stay if he found out how disgusting Makoto was.

_Disgusting. These feelings, these urges, everything about you is disgusting. No one can ever know. They'll leave you all alone. No one would ever care about someone as disgusting as you._

All alone… that was the most threatening part. Never, never, _never,_ would Makoto want to have Haru leave, why couldn't he just stay forever? Why did it have to pan out this way, it just wasn't _fair,_ was it really that wrong to fall in love with someone? But if it wasn't, why couldn't they marry, or why was there never a story about two princes? He'd never seen it anywhere else, never heard it anywhere else, only ever heard the word _gay_ spat out as an uncreative insult.

_Disgusting. You're so selfish. This is your problem, don't expect other people to solve it. Just because you're disgusting it doesn't mean you get to drag the world down with you._

He resented to admit that darkness had a point - this was Makoto’s problem alone, so he needed to develop his own solution.

His first instinct was the most obvious. Just make sure, in the moment that he confessed his feelings, Haru wasn't able to run. Make him unable to leave so that they could stay together, even once he found out about these disgusting feelings. He spent years wrestling with other ideas - there had to be some other way, something that didn't involve hurting Haru - but no matter what he thought to do every scenario ended with him being alone.

And that had all led to this moment, with Makoto alone on the lounge on the verge of tears, his plan having worked perfectly but his happy ending in tatters around him, Haru with him insofar as his body was unable to leave, but drifting further and further away every second. He smiled bitterly.

_Did I ever really expect anything different? I'm disgusting, after all._


	6. Bad Ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now it's Haru's turn to be gay and angsty oVo

_This was a bad idea._ Ostensibly, Haru was critiquing his decision to eat toast in bed without a plate, because he found the sheets consequently full of crumbs, robbing him of his last semblance of comfort, but there were any number of decisions he'd made in recent times that could have inspired the sentiment.

He'd grown bored of mulling over his misgivings, despite not yet having reached an answer. There was no revelation there to find, he'd decided, and even if there was he didn't much care to search for it. He'd make sense of the mess one day, so he'd rather wait for that day to come than try to meet it halfway. He needed to do something. Not much, just literally anything that was not laying still for another 12 to 18 hours. He messed with his phone, but with the reception jammed and no wifi, it was little more than an occasionally musical brick. He noticed with a flicker of irritation that this meant he was missing a big limited-time event on this mobile game he'd taken to playing to help distract him from his swimming dilemma. It gave him a kind of repugnant satisfaction to know he still held the capacity to feel anything much at all, to know that he could still be bothered over the little things. It may have been meaningless, but he'd retained at least that much of his autonomy.

He tore through his suitcase, seeking some other toy, some entertainment, but really returned nothing but six spare swimsuits packed neatly away under several light jumpers and pairs of shorts. He could go to the pool, he supposed, but that carried too high a risk of upsetting Makoto, so he restrained himself with an odd mixture of politeness and self-preservation.

The flicker of irritation burned up again - that he should be concerned for Makoto’s feelings in this situation seemed laughably naïve. Why was it that he still, after everything that had happened over the past hours, still cared so much for Makoto? It was like some part of him knew there must have been a perfectly reasonable explanation, but every other part of him had twisted reality every which way to try and create one and failed.

He found himself more than irritated - angry wasn't quite the right word, more as though he'd scratched a rash too much and it had only just become annoying enough to treat. He needed to do something - some small and pointless rebellion, just to make a statement. He wasn't down for the count in any way, and just because he couldn't leave didn't mean he wasn't able to keep acting normally.

He was going to go to the pool. When he thought about it, it actually seemed fairly subversive - Makoto had expressly forbidden him from swimming last night, so it could, in a way, be a considered an act of defiance. That was all the justification he needed. He fished out his towel and picked out a swimsuit and tore down the hallway with long, confident strides.

 _Maybe this isn't such a good idea. Making him angry could make this a lot worse._ He'd made up his mind, but the whispers of hestitation don't go away so easily. He found himself slowing down, walking more quietly, more stealthily, like a mouse afraid of the housecat hearing. He passed the entrance to the kitchen and, supposing Makoto may still be in there, came to a brief standstill for a moment’s surveillance. He saw a foot lazily dangling over the end of the lounge in the adjacent living room, deducing (wrongly, he would later learn) that Makoto had laid in waiting for him there and fell asleep. He continued forward, avoiding the lounge entirely for fear his deduction may be wrong, but bolstered by the knowledge he would not find Makoto attending the pool.

Making it to the pool had sapped almost all of Haru's resolve, and with the irritation disappated after the walk, he almost found himself ready to turn around and go back to his room without getting in. It was almost as though there were some kind of barrier surrouding the pool, a borderline that would take immense courage to cross, and Haru wasn't feeling terribly courageous anymore.

 _Don't be stupid,_ he whispered to himself, _you came this far._ But the doubt had been sown, and a frightful mind is fertile ground. Paralysed with indecision, he took a few unsteady steps backwards and collapsed gracelessly against the wall, sliding down until he found himself seated awkwardly on the ground. Sunlight streamed in the through the glass walls but it brought no warmth, only a harsh and unforgiving light that laid everything bare. By instinct, Haru rose a hand to cast a shadow over his eyes, and found his towel swinging unbidden into his vision. Small, about the length of his forearm and perhaps twice or three times as wide, the light tore through the thin fabric, casting baby blue shadows pocked with the marks of the white polka dot pattern.

 _Makoto gave me this._ He did, of course, have quite a collection of towels as a swimmer, but he had only brought this one with him. He tried not to think so much of its origins, but trying not to think about it only gave his mind licence to focus even more intensely on the shards of memories falling through his consciousness.

_My 16th birthday. I didn't really want anything and I was pretty despondent to most people so no one would have really thought to get me a gift anyway. My parents had transferred over a little more money than my normal stipend, as was the usual. All in all, I had every intention of letting the day pass without incident and just moving on._

_Makoto had different ideas, trying to force me to let him shout me lunch or dinner or something on the way home. Eventually, we compromised with a split-and-share style popsicle from a vending machine, although Makoto complained that it wasn't special enough since we would probably have done it anyway._

_With nothing much else to do, we went back to his house and found Ran and Ren there, just back from school and ready to play as always. They didn't seem to know it was my birthday - honestly, I didn't know if they were old enough to remember anyone's birthday aside from their own and I assumed Makoto wouldn't have told them._

_Nothing extraordinary happened. We played with the twins for a while, until they got bored of us, and then they ran off to play on their own. We started up a video game, but I don't really remember what it was. Aside from the occasional touch on the shoulder from Makoto, accompanied by requests to let him at the least buy me a cake, it was a perfectly average day._

_The sun began threatening to set and it got to be close to the time for me to leave, so I found my bag and the tie I'd taken off and made towards the door._

_“Haru.” Makoto’s voice echoed from behind me, and I turned around to see him sprawled into the doorframe in an oddly appealing way. His elbow bent at a near perfect right angle, tracing the upper corner of the frame, and his head rested on the crook of his arm as his left side lazily leant against the wall for support, held up mostly by the good grace of God, as he stood one one leg, the other crossed elegantly in front, and was slanted very noticeably away from said support. I faintly remember being impressed at the suppleness in his form._

_“What is it?”_

_“One more thing before you go.” With that, he pushed away from the doorframe with his spare hand and made up the stairs in something of a rush. I followed him up without much thought and saw him turn into his room. I entered shortly afterward, having given him a second to shut the door in case he wished to signal I wasn't welcome._

_He sat there with a smile on his face and a small parcel in his hand. It must have been lying on the bed, in prime position to be grabbed, for him to have retrieved it on such short notice. “It's not much, but happy birthday, Haru.”_

_“You didn't have to, you know. I have everything I need.”_

_“I wanted to, Haru. Stop complaining and just open it.” I did, carefully peeling back the thin layer of blue tissue paper in a futile attempt not to rip it. The towel inside was in many ways unremarkable. Cute, perhaps, but unremarkable otherwise._

_“I saw it at the sports shop the other day and thought it looked unmistakably like you. No one would ever think it belonged to anyone else.”_

_“I live alone, Makoto. No one else uses the towels in my house.”_

_“That may be so, but still…” He looked a little defeated, as though he felt he'd made a bad choice._

_“That aside, it's still a nice towel. Thanks.”_

_His face broke into a goofy smile again as I gathered my legs underneath me and made to leave. “I'm glad you like it. Use it lots, okay?”_

He hadn't used it much since then. It was a nice towel - very soft and very absorbent, it was a highly effective towel and felt nice against bare skin. It was the latter quality that had inhibited its usage. Haru feared it losing its softness and becoming rough and uncomfortable after extended laundering, and simply didn't have the time to hand wash it on a near-daily basis after he took up competitive swimming again a little under a year later. He wanted it to last, so he'd mostly reserved it for use in more personal situations like after bathing, when his skin got maximum exposure and it wouldn't be exposed to chlorine damage. There'd always been a part of his brain insisting there was more to this use of the towel than just the feel of the fabric, that the history of the towel was what he valued, but he'd been strategically ignoring it for some years now.

How different everything seemed looking at those memories, those habits, now. Those gentle touches on the shoulder weren't just rousing attention. The gift probably was bought with ulterior motives. The habits he'd made for using it seemed juvenile and naive and entirely pointless. Part of him wanted to see it full of holes, and he felt a sudden urge to rip it, watch it tear apart under the unexpected input of force and see it left in tatters like his relationship with the man who'd given it to him, but he lacked to drive to bring the urge to fruition.

Collapsing the rest of the way on to the floor, he laid, bare skin touching the cold tiles, stealing what little energy he had left. It faintly occurred to Haru, through his foggy mind, that moving would be for the best. He should go back to bed if he was going to fall asleep. But bed was just so far away. And so there he laid, not tired enough to sleep but too tired to move, until eventually the cold ground won out and he drifted off into a reluctant nap.


	7. A Trade of Dignity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally things happen :) I may have to take a brief hiatus from writing sadly but I will endeavour to have the next thing up shortly!

Haru woke up in his bed, but wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten there at first. The pieces fell into place before too long - there was, after all, only one person in the house who could be responsible. He was glad to find his state of dress unchanged, just an extra blanket draped over his naked torso. 

It didn't give him much ease, though. The thought of Makoto’s eyes on him made him feel dirty, even though they'd laid on him in this state countless times before. Knowing, or at least suspecting, the thoughts behind those eyes left a bitter resentment in Haru for having given him the ability to indulge. It occurred to him, in a moment of horror, to check his body. If he had been touched, he'd really be none the wiser, after all. The rational part of his brain doubted he'd find anything - nothing felt out of place, after all, and Haru couldn't bring himself to imagine Makoto actively hurting him despite it all. It proved to be right, much to the relief of his paranoid brain, and he sunk back into the mattress with a silent sigh.

He considered changing, but it was a warm evening and he enjoyed the feeling of the fabric against his skin. It was gentle and soft, and carried a hint of the smell of fabric softener from the last laundry load. He tugged at the blanket over his shoulders, pulling it off at first but before long he'd swaddled himself in it like it was a cotton cocoon. He relished in the comfort for a few sweet seconds, rolling around the bed trying to find the softest parts he could make into a path along the length of his body. 

It was a joyous moment when he realised he didn't stop to consider the idea of staying there forever. Haru had become intimately familiar with the internal workings of his mind, particularly the dark parts, over the past few months of stagnation, so he knew what these kinds of things meant. If he couldn't sit still, it was because he was worrying about what was in the future. If he found himself feeling lonely, it was because he couldn't articulate what he was feeling so he couldn't understand it himself. But the worst moments were the ones were he felt nothing at all, and just didn't move. He didn't sleep, or watch something on the TV, he just didn't move. Those were the moments in which all bets were off. Every choice he'd ever made, every word he'd ever said, every last element of his existence was brought into question, because it all just seemed so meaningless. They came time and again on their own, but he'd always feared he'd reach a point where something would happen and one would stay, unmoving and unmovable. Well, by all accounts, this was about the most extreme event that could happen, and that wasn't enough to lock him down. Knowing that, at the very least, his own mind wasn't going to turn against him, took a lot of weight out of the situation.

Enough to confront Makoto. Not violently, and not with the intention of getting out, at least not yet. But enough to exist, and to be able to eat and shower and swim as though nothing was wrong. And enough to maybe find the weakest link, and break out, eventually. But for now, just functioning was enough.

He saw a clock, the clock on his bedside table, and noticed it was later than he'd thought, about 6. For the first time since yesterday, his thoughts were enough in order for him to feel hungry - not the kind of primal hunger of a body at its limit but rather the hunger of the everyday, letting him know that now would be a good time to eat. He had half a mind to waddle to the kitchen as he was, wrapped in a blanket looking like a severely overweight caterpillar, but he knew that was a stupid idea. He wouldn't have arms to cook or anything, so it'd be a rather pointless adventure. Reluctantly swapping his blanket for the shirt he'd been wearing before his quest to the pool and his swimsuit for the shorts, he made for the kitchen.

He hadn't foreseen the lack of food, despite already knowing of it. All that was left was the chicken thighs, which had started to look a little suspicious, a handful of wilting vegetables and some staples like rice and bread. They'd overstocked on seasoning, since things like soy sauce and spices only ever came in large amounts per what you used, but without anything to season they weren't worth much. Haru sighed, feeling like he'd been denied something somehow, and grabbed a piece of bread to nibble at absentmindedly while he considered his next course of action.

It was too late in the day to place an order from the supermarket - he could (or he could ask Makoto to), but it wouldn't be delivered until start of business tomorrow. He didn't trust the chicken - the packing had started to swell with gases, and he didn't care to smell them to confirm his suspicions. Slumping into a breakfast chair, he resigned himself to hungry night when a familiar voice rung out from behind him.

“We could go into town to eat.” Makoto, as always, knew what he was thinking, although given he'd just been ferreting through the fridge and was now eating dry bread it probably wasn't the most difficult thing to guess. Haru's bravado had been great in theory, but he still felt more than a little threatened when actually confronting his captor. Suddenly noticing how close his back was to the counter and how much that limited his movement, he pushed away from the seat and made to move over to the lounges, where he could be more wary. He pointedly sunk into the furthest cushion from Makoto, hoping the message would be sent.

“I thought I wasn't allowed to leave.”

“Of course you are! I just have to come with you.”

“You and the handcuffs, right?”

“It doesn't have to be the handcuffs, Haru. I've got quite a selection of things you can pick from.” Makoto had walked across the room in this time, and curled into himself, knees to chest, on the same couch as Haru but on the opposite end. Haru breathed a silent sigh of relief - this distance he could handle. 

“I think you're missing the point.”

“Either way, we need to eat and we're not going to get much food here.”

As much as he may have wanted, Haru couldn't refute the logic. Pouting and turning away from Makoto, he attempted to evaluate his options as rationally as he could.

He could stay here, and stay hungry. But what was the point in that? He might deny Makoto a sliver of pleasure but in doing so would also deny it to himself, and ultimately that was nothing short of a temper tantrum from a particularly petulant child.

Or he could cave and go and eat and escape, even if temporarily, from the trap this house had become, all for the cost of a shred of pride. Honestly, was it even that? Had Makoto asked nicely, in the right setting, Haru probably wouldn't have objected to wearing the handcuffs or a harness or whatever kind of device Makoto had - it was only the context that made it seem so unpleasant. The idea of being forced to put them on when he didn't want to. But in a twisted kind of way, it was no different to swallowing bitter medicine - a necessary suffering borne for the sake of a greater benefit. Viewing it in that way made it seem more palatable.

Letting out a somewhat defeated sigh, he turned back to Makoto, attempting to maintain his normal somewhat aloof air, but having no idea if he was successful. “You make a good point. Let's go.”

Makoto’s face lit up like a firework, and for a split second Haru nearly forgot about everything and felt normal again. It didn't take long for reality to set back in and for him to realise he had to make a choice.

“Okay, let’s get you dressed to go out, then.” Haru would have almost laughed at how misleading the phrase was, if he was the kind to laugh. 

“I assume you have something a least slightly more subtle than handcuffs.”

“I have just the thing in mind.” Makoto turned away too quickly for Haru to see his face, but his voice took on a noticeably less bright tone. Not a dark or threatening tone - if anything, Haru would describe it as ashamed. He lead the way upstairs, neither of them breaking the silence, afraid of what the other might say. All Haru could gather was a slight hunch in Makoto’s shoulders, and a slight reddening at the tips of his ears, and he hadn't the slightest idea what either might mean. Before long, Makoto swung open the door to the bedroom, letting Haru enter first. 

He sat himself on the foot of the bed, because it was quite central to the room and he wanted a good view of whatever cupboard or box or other receptacle Makoto would open that held all of these restraints he spoke of. Makoto entered after him, closing the door behind him out of the trained habit of an older brother. He made his way over to the built-in wardrobe, opening it sheepishly like he was afraid of being seen or heard. Haru expecting him to bend down to a white plastic storage box in the lower left of the space that he supposed held the “supplies”, but instead he reached to the shelf above the hanging space and pulled down a small, rectangular brown box, about twice as long as it was wide. Had he not known better, Haru might have supposed it to contain a necklace or an ornate pendant, some kind of overstated jewellery in that vein.

“Would you like to try it on?” Makoto's voice was shy, as though he was torn between two thoughts. Not waiting for a response, knowing Haru would just make some dry and thoughtlessly offensive observation, he lifted the upper half of the box away.

Haru was surprised to see his guess of a necklace wasn't exceptionally far from the truth. The box contained a thin strap of black fabric that Haru could only identify as a choker by the the clasp, which had been clumsily replaced by a more complicated circular locking mechanism - it didn't require a key or combination to unlock but certainly more dexterity than what most people had when touching the back of their own neck. He couldn't be sure exactly, but it looked as though the clasp release worked via a sequence of steps, not unlike a child proof bottle. Pushing down a button released a small switch that could be moved around the edge of the device, leaving the hook free to be pulled away, or some such melodramatic affair. The front of the choker housed a small, but eye-catching, feature - a small, iridescent circle was affixed to the strap, diametrically opposite the clasp. The rather large charm, on closer inspection, wasn't a flat circle but rather the upper half of a brilliant cut in some sort of prismatic mineral fixed on a metal substrate. It was certainly gaudy enough to allow the thing to pass for a pretty, if tasteless, fashion accessory. But its true function was somewhat more sinister - it drew attention away from the two sides of the choker, from each of which issued a strand of tightly braided leather. Haru couldn't quite see how long they were, since they were twisted and curled in the box, but he could see that they each led to a small metal ring. The metal rings were, in fact, little more than bracelets - thin strips of wire, just the right size to get onto a wrist without it coming back off of its own accord. He was confused, briefly, trying to figure exactly how the device was meant to actually restrain him at all, before he realised it was, in effect, a leash. The choker around his neck and the bracelets around Makoto’s wrists, he could move freely, so long as he remained within a certain radius. And with the gemstone setting flashing in every different colour, most people would be too distracted to notice the trail of leather leading from his companion’s wrist, to the hem of his shirt, up it and under it, trailing up to his neck like ivy up a wall. It was, Haru had to begrudgingly admit, a very clever contraption. 

Makoto was breathing heavily as he lifted the choker out, but whether it was to restrain his excitement or his sadness Haru couldn't quite be sure. The choker looked clumsier when lifted out the box, the fabric collapsing under the weight of the charm at and front and the leather tails twisting in odd directions as they hung free. Holding it by either side of the lock, Makoto stretched out the fabric and closed in on Haru from behind to put it on. The intimacy was fraught, but with exactly what neither of them particularly knew. Haru had to admit, despite himself, this was rather exciting, and allowed himself the luxury of imagining this in happier circumstances. He flinched back to reality as the cold metal of the charm’s backing pressed tightly against his neck, pulled tighter by the gradual progression of the lock towards itself. The back of his neck burned under Makoto's gentle touch and hot breath, but his blood froze when he thought about how long this thing had waited in his wardrobe. He felt the lock click into place and couldn't help but notice how well it fit - it was tight, but not unduly restrictive, and he could still breathe easily. 

“Sorry for this, Haru.” With only that was warning, Makoto closed the gap between his face and Haru’s shoulder and took the loose neckline of Haru’s shirt gently in his teeth. The closeness was thrilling, exhilarating, and for a split second Haru wanted those lips pressed on his back just to know how it would feel. Would he really hate it as much as he thought he would have last night? Pulling Haru's shirt just far enough away from his body to allow it, Makoto dropped the two leather braids through the gap. The weight of the bracelets falling exerted a small but unexpected force on Haru’s neck, pulling it back ever so slightly as Makoto pulled away, the heat of intimacy replaced by a streak of cold metal down Haru's spine as they tumbled down the back of his shirt and found their way out of the hem unaided. Haru noticed the braids were long enough for the bracelets to fall to the floor, but only just. So, his radius of freedom was approximately the length of his legs. That seemed reasonable - it would, in theory, allow him to walk as much as one step in front of or behind Makoto and comfortably sit opposite him at a table. Haru didn't know if he should be impressed or frightened by the level of engineering that had gone into this.

Makoto straightened his back and took a step away and Haru, despite himself, immediately missed the feeling of his presence. He was not to be denied for long, as his strong hands took a tight grip on Haru’s shoulders, slowly but confidently lifting him to his feet from the bed and rotating him to face a full-body mirror he'd revealed by closing the wardrobe earlier.

At first glance, even knowing of its purpose, Haru couldn't help but be impressed by how good it looked. The jet black material was smooth and matte, contrasting starkly against both his skin and the charm. It didn't look as large and gaudy on, he noticed. The colourless material wasn't much by itself, only eye-catching for the fact of being prismatic, casting small rainbows around its edges that gently danced around Haru's skin as as he moved, made stronger by the silvery steel back of the housing. And even knowing they were there, he could hardly notice the tiny straps of leather leading down his back. 

“I always knew it would look great on you.” Haru’s eyes tracked up the mirror at those words, finding instead Makoto’s face. He was smiling gently, almost bitterly, like a mother that had dressed her daughter for a wedding - like even though he'd waited for this moment for so long, he couldn't help but be disappointed it had come to pass. Haru's gaze flicked back down, not wanting to linger on that confusing expression. 

“Where do you even get something like this?” Asking as much to fill the space as out of curiosity, he pushed back against Makoto’s hold, and he obliging released his grip.

“The pieces come from all about the place but I put them together myself.” Haru's blood froze at those words and immediately his head was filled with so many contradictions, the memories of so many days after school Makoto was quietly gluing the stone into the housing, or stitching a length of leather braid to the choker, all with the goal of one day seeing it around Haru's neck. He thought of all the small elements he'd noticed were so well engineered, the perfect lengths and the right sizes and the clever misdirection, and couldn't ignore the fearful reality that these had all come from Makoto’s mind. How many measurements were taken without him ever noticing, how many discarded prototypes had there been, how many times could he have fallen asleep and been made to model this and woken up none the wiser? Suddenly things started to fall into place - Makoto wasn't crazy or dangerous or deceptive, he was  _ obsessed,  _ and it was so much more threatening to realise that because an obsessed person can become anything so long as it gets them what they want.

Casting his eyes to the side, Haru saw a stack of books on the desk with a lump of metal resting on top of them which he gradually recognised as the key ring that would get him out. Briefly flicking his eyes back to the mirror, he noticed Makoto's gushing gaze would hardly be seeing the key ring, and that was when he figured it out.

An obsessed person is dangerous, but they are also vulnerable. They can be easily distracted from important details, and even more easily manipulated into behaving the way you want. In the chains that had snaked around him in the past few days, the weakest link was Makoto himself. Why break a chain when you can make the one holding the other end let go? 

He could definitely get Makoto careless enough to steal the keys. Realising this, Haru suppressed his instinctive urge to just grab the key ring now, catch Makoto off guard, run without thinking. It might work. But it would have been too risky. He only had one chance - if Makoto figured out his plan, he'd start being more cautious, maybe even keeping them on his person. That was the worst-case scenario. No, it wouldn't come to that. Haru would take his one shot and make sure it worked out the way he planned. But for that he needed time. He needed time to think and to prioritise and to explore different options. For now, he would just focus on surviving the night.

He shook Makoto's hand off his shoulder, feeling much more than just that weight leave him. “Well, that's quite impressive. I do actually kinda like it.” He flashed a smile at the taller man, unable to hide the relief he felt now he had a plan. “Let's get going.”


	8. The Trip to Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More fluff, mostly just Haru being confused~ thanks for your patience but my world is together again

The town was indeed some distance away - they left the house around 6:30 but didn't get there until 7:15 or so. It was, for all intents and purposes, a regular rural mountain town. Slow and quiet, the streets didn't bustle with activity the way they did closer to Tokyo, but everything you needed you could get. This was, all in all, definitely for the best. Cleverly designed as the leash may be, there is a limit to how subtle restraints can be while maintaining efficacy, and in a crowd any larger it'd be a bet against the odds that no one would notice. 

Haru couldn't quite put a word on how he felt about this. He'd expected a thrill of freedom at seeing the outside, a burst of excitement at the concept of escaping, even in such a limited way. But he found himself reacting in a surprisingly normal way - while it felt good to work his body a little, he was mostly just annoyed at having to leave the house, the same way he'd always feel going to school or doing groceries or anything. He supposed he might have felt a little more ill at ease if he tried to run ahead, or break away from Makoto, and the length of leather between them jerked roughly at his neck, but no part of him even considered misbehaving. 

“It's always nice to see a quiet little town like this.” Makoto had been making banal remarks all the way, but Haru was yet to respond with more than a quiet hum. “Kind of reminds me of home.”

“Is that so?” Haru didn't look at Makoto, but he figured some light conversation would shift attention away from the collar. It seemed Makoto was thinking along similar lines, because he drew in closer to Haru, leaving almost no room between them. Haru flinched at the sudden closeness at first, but when he felt the leather around his neck go slack he figured out why - Makoto's body hid the point where the braids ran under Haru's shirt. He was glad for the intervention when they turned the corner into the main shopping district. It wasn't exactly full of people, but there were enough that a pair of prying eyes wasn't an impossibility. 

“Well, we're here now. What should we eat?” Makoto turned his face to Haru's and smiled expectantly, but his face was so close that Haru was mostly just uncomfortable. In general, the closeness was uncomfortable. Makoto's right hand, the one with the bracelets, had slid behind Haru's body to minimise the length of the leather that was on display - but the natural swing of Makoto's arm always had his fingers just brush against the outside of Haru's thigh, and he couldn't help but think it was deliberate. 

“I don't really care.” Haru took the first step, trying to put a little distance between them to avoid that touch, that infuriatingly intimate touch, and looked around to see what kinds of places were open. Seeing that many places were just counters in front of a kitchen, he amended his earlier statement. “Just not somewhere we have to order at a counter”. 

“Mmmm, that is probably for the best.” Makoto said it pensively, as though he'd never much thought of that before. Haru found that a little hard to believe given he'd invented this new kind of leash, but everything had its limits, he supposed.

“Let's just find a little restaurant somewhere and go from there.”

“Agreed,” Makoto smiled, “it's so much easier to make up your mind once you're sitting down, don't you think?”

“I've never much struggled either way.”

“Well, now that I think about it, that's true enough.”

With nothing much left to say, the chilled silence relapsed on Haru's behalf. Makoto busied himself looking for potential places to eat, and Haru mostly just looked straight ahead, hoping that motionlessness might lead to invisibility. 

Thinking they'd stood still long enough, Haru made to start walking again hoping a new visage point might reveal new options. He proved himself quite right - hiding away in a side alley was something resembling a yakiniku restaurant in style, although lacking the DIY grill built into the table. He raised a hand and pointed in its general direction, and turned to face Makoto. “Will this one do?”

“Looks good enough to me!” Makoto smiled cheerily and took the first few steps down the street. It was then, as Haru hurriedly matched his stride to avoid a sudden yank around his neck, that he noticed something. All of a few seconds ago, he'd taken the first step - but he'd never got more than his one step radius from Makoto. Without so much as a word, or a nod, Makoto knew just by instinct that Haru would start moving and fell in step without so much as a second’s delay.

Something about it was so…  _ healthy _ . Something about the way that Makoto was tending to Haru's needs, always keeping an eye out for him, was just so reminiscent of a normal relationship that it was difficult to rationalise how he'd been able to perform however many felonies were necessary to create the circumstances Haru now found himself in. All the sense Haru had made of the situation came crashing down around him again, and the confusion flooded back in. Every time Haru made up a satisfactory explanation, something that just blew it out the water happened. Why couldn't it just be simple?

His attention was pulled back to reality by a faint groan from the pit of his stomach.  _ Food first,  _ he reasoned,  _ existential crisis later.  _ He closely followed Makoto into the restaurant, minimising the distance between them as he noticed a waitress, young, younger than the two of them, at the front door.

“Welcome!” she chirped, in an almost offensively upbeat tone. “Table for 2?” 

“Yes, thanks,” Makoto chirped back, equally bubbly, although slyly folding his right hand into the space between him and Haru to shield the bracelets from view. There was scarcely room even for just his hand, though, so it wound up pressed tightly into the small of his back, palm up, and it came dangerously close to gliding up Haru's shirt to his stomach. 

Haru instinctively flinched backwards at the possibility, drawing the waitress’ eyes. For a split second, abject terror flowed through him thinking she was too close, there was no way she wasn't going to see, she'd figure it out.

“That's a nice charm you have there. Where'd you get it?” Haru audibly exhaled as he processed the sentence. The charm had served its function, and she hadn't noticed. He was so relieved he forgot to answer until Makoto made the slightest jerk of his wrist, pulling along the length of the leather, not strong enough to move Haru's neck but strong enough to send a message.

“It… it was a gift.” Of course, the notion of causing a scene had occurred to him. Explaining it was more than a charm, I'm trapped, please help me somehow, but it somehow didn't seem the right way to deal with the situation. If he did that, Makoto would then be in trouble with the law, probably wind up in gaol and that just didn't seem fair. Which is an incredibly strange thing to think of your kidnapper, but nonetheless Haru couldn't bring himself to cause that amount of harm over what suddenly seemed, when compared in scale to the outside world, a very small transgression.

She smiled with the faintest hint of awkwardness as she showed them to a table, thankfully in a corner opposite the shopfront, so they were hidden from view from every side save the front. The wooden table was almost reflective for how well it was polished and cleaned, but it was let down by worn leather on the couches surrounding it. The menus and condiments were set in an interesting little holder against the wall - a small U-shape made of wood held the menus, and a series of square cells leading away the the main holder each housed a separate seasoning. A small hook hang unoccupied from the U, probably for daily specials or the like, and the entire system was bolted down to the table for whatever reason. 

“Call me over when you're ready to order!” the waitress chirped as she wandered away, although where to Haru wasn't quite sure where to - there were no other customers and not so much as a speck of dust to clean. Nonetheless, he was grateful for the privacy, because now they could attempt to sit down.

“Hmmm, how best to go about this…” Makoto said in a breathy voice, as much to himself as to anyone else, as he looked at his wrist pensively. They had reached something of an impasse - the table was about three quarters the length of the leather, meaning that to sit across from one another the straps would pull Haru's shirt up to about belly button level, and even then likely be sitting taut across the table, in plain sight. 

“You didn't plan for this, did you?” Haru almost sighed the words out but managed a veneer of cool civility. “Don't fret, I've got this.” Without any warning, he grabbed Makoto's wrist and slid off the bracelets in an impressively fluid motion, and sat himself down on one side of the booth. Taking the bracelets, he hung them from hook on the menu holder, leading the remaining length of the leather behind and under the table. Setting his elbows on the table and interlocking his fingers, he rested his chin on his hands before he noticed Makoto's somewhat dumbfounded expression. “Are you planning on sitting down or should I order first?”

Makoto shook his head lightly, like he was shrugging off a sour taste. “No, I just… you took me by surprise a little, that's all.” Sliding gracefully into the opposite side of the booth, he continued, “I didn't expect you'd sit down after taking them off.”

Haru fought to keep his expression level as he noticed the same. Honestly, he'd just noticed the hook and then more or less sat down without thinking too much about it. He'd not considered that, in those few seconds, he'd not been restrained. He hadn't particularly  _ wanted  _ to escape, more to the point. He tried to explain it to himself as being hungry and wanting food, or as trying to set Makoto off his guard, or any number of excuses to avoid admitting he was, in an odd way, having fun. He was, ultimately, still holidaying with his best friend, other considerations notwithstanding. Honestly, given the option, Haru wasn't entirely sure he would actually leave. The only reason he wanted to is because he couldn't. 

Echoing his thoughts from earlier, he repeated,  _ food first, existential crisis later,  _ as his stomach made its objections to the delay known, inaudible but no less deniable. He pulled a menu free, careful not to disturb the bracelets, and only needed to peruse for a split second to see a mackerel don. 

“Hurry up and decide. I'm hungry.”


	9. After Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally it's starting to get fun~ Idk how much longer I can continue to write this before it ~boils over~ I planned to make this longer but I may cut it shorter than expected.

The walk back seemed more daunting than the walk there, courtesy of some very generous portion sizes at the restaurant. Neither of them were particularly big eaters (that had always been Nagisa’s role, despite appearances), so in retrospect they probably could have comfortably shared one meal, but having ordered without that knowledge they had instead decided to stuff themselves rather than seem rude. 

Makoto’s head hung loosely, giving a faint air of discomfort. “Oh god,” he wailed, “if I’d have known it was going to be so big I would have ordered a half serve.”

“Quit complaining, Makoto.”

“I know, I know, it was good value. But I’m so full now, and we have a long walk uphill to get back.” 

The taller man slouched and pouted at the thought, and for a split second Haru couldn’t help but remark on how cute Makoto was when he was being petulant like this. He was normally so adult and responsible, always being the one to settle fights, making sure everyone was on time, taking care of Ren and Ran, things like that. So seeing him act a little selfish and spoiled was a treat that didn’t come by often.

Smiling despite himself, he turned to Makoto. “Well, let’s find some place to sit while it goes down a little. I think I saw a little park on the way in.”

Makoto’s face lit up, although what exactly for Haru hadn’t the faintest idea. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

They wordlessly curled back through the streets, using most of their attention for retracing their steps through the unfamiliar territory. When they made it back to the road that lead back north to the house, the park Haru had seen came into view.

It was small, although that was likely for the best - it wasn’t likely anyone else would be coming this way at this time of night. Perhaps the size of a tennis court, or a little less, it was nonetheless overburdened with life. The grass grew wild, and the edge opposite the road was fenced off with ancient trees so tall their top branches were out of eyeshot, and trunks at least 4 or 5 metres around. Two small flowerbeds lined the remaining two sides, but they likely hadn’t been attended to at any point in either of their lifetimes judging by the broken-down retainer wall and explosions of weeds. Some of the weeds still had small but brightly coloured flowers, breaking up the panorama of green with flecks of yellow, purple and red, thrown around at random as if a painter had carelessly flicked their brush towards the ground. It was, objectively, unappealing and unrefined, but retained an inexplicable vigour. It was ugly and wild but so unquestionably alive it made the air quiver with a silent energy.

Near to the trees, a particularly colourful patch of weeds had tried it hardest to lay claim to a patch of soil but found its path obstructed by the metal leg of a park bench. Not to be outdone, the park had issued forth a climber, some kind of ivy or the like, that had curled its tendrils up the legs and begun work on the frame, but strangely had mostly ignored the wooden slats of the seat itself, as if to deliberately leave it free to tempt weary-footed passersby. Haru supposed it could have been a token attempt from whatever body was responsible for maintaining the park, to at least leave the bench free of weeds, but it seemed unlikely that someone would carefully prune a climber back to the frame rather than just destroying it from the root. Haru made the first few steps towards the bench but found himself stopped short by a dead weight pulling against his body. He turned around to see Makoto sitting on the bare ground.

“Get up, Makoto. You have no idea what kind of plants are growing in there.”

“So what?,” he said with a laugh, “it’s not like either of us are allergic to anything anyway.” With that said, he laid himself flat on the ground, back down, and the motion of his wrists left little room for argument, with the unprepared Haru clumsily trying to regain his balance on one foot before falling into Makoto’s waiting arms.

A second stretched out into hours as Haru found himself lacking any desire to push away. Against all his better instincts, he wanted nothing more than to just stay still and nuzzle into Makoto’s chest where he’d fallen. He felt his face grow hot, in part from the intimacy and in part from how appealing he found it, and used the embarrassment as an excuse to roll out of his captor’s arms, turning his back and laying on his side, facing away.

More laughter bubbled forth and Haru cursed how much he wanted to turn around and see the face it came from. Why could he not just  _ stay angry  _ at Makoto? “You’re cute when you’re flustered, Haru.”

His blush extended its reach, pushing into his ears despite protest equal to every drop of conscious energy he could manage. Desperately attempting to at least keep his voice level, he muttered, “Well, I’d thank you not to make a habit of flustering me.”

“That might be easier said than done.” Makoto’s voice had dropped an octave and moved much closer than Haru had anticipated, and was soon joined by an arm draped over his stomach, and a second attempting to snake underneath him to meet the first. Haru’s slender frame left a sizeable gap between his waist and the ground, meaning it was only a matter of time until it succeeded. A warm breath shifted the longer strands of Haru’s hair that traced the lines of his neck, foreshadowing a face that nestled neatly into the space above Haru’s shoulder, almost giving the impression it was purpose-built to fit there. 

Haru’s mind nearly tore in two from the infuriatingly duplicitous touch. He knew he shouldn’t like it. Just this morning, he was too scared of Makoto to even leave his bed, and twice more throughout the day he’d been paralysed by that same fear, enough to stop him 2 feet shy of the pool. His friend wasn’t the same person he knew from school and from swim club, this was a darker, more dangerous person wearing the same face. 

But at the same time, he couldn’t deny his racing heartbeat. He couldn’t deny how ecstatic he was to experience this intimacy that he could never admit to having wanted for he didn’t even know how long anymore. That he’d spent so many years running away from, in case everyone he got close to suddenly decided to move to Australia. How often he’d console himself with the reassuring certainty of Makoto being there, and wanting to pull him closer, so close that they’d be together alway. He couldn’t turn his back on all that and feel nothing the way he knew he should. He couldn’t turn his back on the desire to turn back to face him and see what might happen, but he kept it in check somehow. 

Somehow, only now could he come to terms with the fact that, for years, he’d loved Makoto this way. 

But the touch of cold metal through his shirt, a reminder of the bracelets that tied them together, was the call to reality he needed. A sharp and unpleasant reminder that however much he loved Makoto, the feeling was, perhaps, not mutual. Makoto had as much as confessed on that first night, but actions spoke louder than words. He may consider his feelings to be love, but Haru couldn’t bring himself to reconcile the feelings he now recognised as love with Makoto’s devices and tricks and traps, or with any of the events of the past two days.

He wriggled enough to loosen Makoto’s hold without needing to entirely break it. Drawing his face as close as he dared, he locked his gaze against green eyes, and with all the tenderness he knew how to muster, whispered, “Why did you do this?”

Makoto’s expression clouded over in an instant, as if someone had drawn a curtain over the sun. He loosened his arms further, and it was his turn to roll away, unable to face Haru’s question. 

He was torn. He wanted as much as anything to break down and explain it all, how he’d be driven to this through fear, how he’d only need to stay friends, how he just couldn’t bear being left alone. But that same fear whispered in his ear, as it had for years, that one same word.  _ Disgusting.  _ It had taken a stranglehold on Makoto’s life for as long as he could remember, and he was as powerless against it now as he had always been. He pulled his legs underneath himself in lieu of answering the simple question posed to him, feeling too hollow to cry. 

“I’m feeling less full now. Let’s go back.”

Haru scrambled to his feet, graceful in his haste as only he could be, and Makoto stormed towards the road, making sure not to so much as look at Haru. And not a word was spoken until they reached the house, and with a curt “good night”, Makoto retreated from the eyes that gave him affection he had forfeited the right to receive, and the man he was left with no choice but to call his victim.


End file.
